Dec 04, 2014

Consider this official. I am issuing an apology to every member of every church that I have served over the last 20+ years. ...

... But this Sunday Sabbatical has also illustrated some things to me, particularly now that I am working a 9-to-5 (or, more like 7-to-6) day. Honestly, I’ve never had a real job before, one that occupied a truly specific time slot and required a very specific and demanding schedule. Yes, church work is intense, but the one perk is that it usually has a great deal of flexibility in the day-to-day operations.

I actually think that every pastor needs a season of the workaday world, as it would benefit both the leader and the led. It is amazing how much can be learned by living in the same mode as the people to whom you are called to minister. Here are a few that I’ve picked up: ...

Nov 03, 2014

The rapid spread of Christianity is forcing an official rethink on religion. ...

... In April one of Wenzhou’s largest churches was completely demolished. Officials are untroubled by the clash between the city’s famously freewheeling capitalism and the Communist Party’s ideology, yet still see religion and its symbols as affronts to the party’s atheism. ...

... Christianity is hard to control in China, and getting harder all the time. It is spreading rapidly, and infiltrating the party’s own ranks. The line is blurring between house churches and official ones, and Christians are starting to emerge from hiding to play a more active part in society. The Communist Party has to find a new way to deal with all this. There is even talk that the party, the world’s largest explicitly atheist organisation, might follow its sister parties in Vietnam and Cuba and allow members to embrace a dogma other than—even higher than—that of Marx.

Any shift in official thinking on religion could have big ramifications for the way China handles a host of domestic challenges, from separatist unrest among Tibetan Buddhists and Muslim Uighurs in the country’s west to the growth of NGOs and “civil society”—grassroots organisations, often with a religious colouring, which the party treats with suspicion, but which are also spreading fast. ...

... Buddhism, much longer established in China than Christianity, is surging too, as is folk religion; many more Han are making pilgrimages to Buddhist shrines in search of spiritual comfort. All this worries many officials, for whom religion is not only Marx’s “opium of the people” but also, they believe, a dangerous perverter of loyalty away from the party and the state. Christianity, in particular, is associated with 19th-century Western imperial encroachment; and thus the party’s treatment of Christians offers a sharp insight into the way its attitudes are changing.

It is hard even to guess at the number of Christians in China. Official surveys seek to play down the figures, ignoring the large number who worship in house churches. By contrast, overseas Christian groups often inflate them. There were perhaps 3m Catholics and 1m Protestants when the party came to power in 1949. Officials now say there are between 23m and 40m, all told. In 2010 the Pew Research Centre, an American polling organisation, estimated there were 58m Protestants and 9m Catholics. Many experts, foreign and Chinese, now accept that there are probably more Christians than there are members of the 87m-strong Communist Party. Most are evangelical Protestants.

Predicting Christianity’s growth is even harder. Yang Fenggang of Purdue University, in Indiana, says the Christian church in China has grown by an average of 10% a year since 1980. He reckons that on current trends there will be 250m Christians by around 2030, making China’s Christian population the largest in the world. Mr Yang says this speed of growth is similar to that seen in fourth-century Rome just before the conversion of Constantine, which paved the way for Christianity to become the religion of his empire. ...

... A new breed of educated, urban Christians has emerged. Gerda Wielander of the University of Westminster, in her book “Christian Values in Communist China”, says that many Chinese are attracted to Christianity because, now that belief in Marxism is declining, it offers a complete moral system with a transcendental source. ...

... Some Chinese also discern in Christianity the roots of Western strength. They see it as the force behind the development of social justice, civil society and rule of law, all things they hope to see in China. ...

... The paradox, as they all know, is that religious freedom, if it ever takes hold, might harm the Christian church in two ways. The church might become institutionalised, wealthy and hence corrupt, as happened in Rome in the high Middle Ages, and is already happening a little in the businessmen’s churches of Wenzhou. Alternatively the church, long strengthened by repression, may become a feebler part of society in a climate of toleration. As one Beijing house-church elder declared, with a nod to the erosion of Christian faith in western Europe: “If we get full religious freedom, then the church is finished.

Aug 12, 2014

"... Petrie advocates what he calls “vertical development” or the advancement in a person’s capacity to think in “more complex, systemic, strategic, and interdependent ways (in contrast to horizontal development that adds knowledge, skills, and competencies). New leaders must think differently before they can act differently.

Often the qualities we see in church leaders are precisely those most associated with a low level of vertical development (dependent/conformer) — team player, faithful follower, reliant on authority, seeks direction, and aligns with others. A smaller number function at the next level (independent/achiever) — independent thinker, self-directed, drives an agenda, takes a stand for what they believe, and guided by an internal compass. But today’s need is for the more highly developed independent/collaborator leader characterized as interdependent thinker; sees systems, patterns, and connections; longer-term thinking; holds multi-frame perspectives; and holds contradictions.

The new leader must be far more adaptable to changing circumstances. Collaboration is essential in order to span boundaries and develop networks. Leaders will need to be much more comfortable with ambiguity in order to be always looking for clues and patterns in the changing landscape. Just as important, this new way of leading must move beyond leaders to affect the entire organizational culture of the church. Congregations need to expect incomplete solutions, much trial and error, and a great deal of learning about themselves and their contexts. ..."

Amen. Reading this post brought to mind an article I read about Microsoft's evolving process of software development. It used to be that Microsoft developed an operating system, released it, and then tried to stabilize it over the next three years. In the meantime, the next system was being designed, but you were mostly stuck with a given format for three years. It was much like building a house and moving in until you moved again in three years, and for that reason each house had to be delivered pretty much as a fully functional operational house when you moved in. Now operating systems have ongoing updates. There are still occasional major revisions but there is also constant evolution and correction. The church has got think more that way as well. The article is somewhat lengthy but an interesting read: How Microsoft dragged its development practices into the 21st century

Jul 22, 2014

By running an experiment among Germans collecting their passports or ID cards in the citizen centers of Berlin, we find that individuals with an East German family background cheat significantly more on an abstract task than those with a West German family background. The longer individuals were exposed to socialism, the more likely they were to cheat on our task. While it was recently argued that markets decay morals (Falk and Szech, 2013), we provide evidence that other political and economic regimes such as socialism might have an even more detrimental effect on individuals’ behavior.

Conclusion:

... If socialism indeed promotes individual dishonesty, the specific features of this socio-political system that lead to this outcome remain to be determined. The East German socialist regime differed from the West German capitalist regime in several important ways. First, the system did not reward work based to merit, and made it difficult to accumulate wealth or pass anything on to one’s family. This may have resulted in a lack of meaning leading to demoralization (Ariely et al., 2008), and perhaps less concern for upholding standards of honesty. Furthermore, while the government claimed to exist in service of the people, it failed to provide functional public systems or economic security. Observing this moral hypocrisy in government may have eroded the value citizens placed on honesty. Finally, and perhaps most straightforwardly, the political and economic system pressured people to work around official laws and cheat to game the system. Over time, individuals may come to normalize these types of behaviors. Given these distinct possible influences, further research will be needed to understand which aspects of socialism have the strongest or most lasting impacts on morality.

On a related note, I would add that there is a correlation between trust of (and care for) strangers and the degree to which a country is market oriented. It isn't clear whether trusting people are more inclined to engage in market exchange or market exchange makes people more trusting. One thought is that market exchange makes people interdependent and more attuned to the plight of others than does a centralized economy or a highly distributed economy where people are constrained to cooperating within face-to-face community.

Jul 14, 2014

Alan Noble as a very good piece in the Atlantic: Is Evangelical Morality Still Acceptable in America? He doesn't define exactly what he means by "Evangelical Morality" but clearly he is talking about people who hold more traditionalist views on a set of moral issues. Here are some excerpts:

"... Behind all of these charges is the suspicion that evangelicals are simply refusing to accept contemporary American mores; they are privileging their faith over the moral spirit of the age. But for many evangelicals, these beliefs are not actually a sign of retreat from public life. Instead, there is a fear that in an increasingly secularized society, there will be less tolerance for people who wish to act upon their deeply held religious beliefs, except in narrowly defined, privatized spaces. This is a fundamentally American concern: Will I have the right to serve God as I believe I am obligated to? ..."

"... To a large extent, this tension has been caused by a shift in what we think of as the domain of morality. The vocabulary we use to describe same-sex marriage and contraceptives has changed from the language of morality to the language of rights. ..."

"... Often, the Christian defense of what they believe is their religious liberty is framed as fundamental hatefulness, homophobia, and misogyny, rather than disagreement grounded in morality. Much to the shame of the faith, a few who claim to be Christian really are motivated by hate. Those who disagree with them see little point in engaging with them on these issues, which is understandable, but it’s unfair and counterproductive to extend that attitude to all evangelical Christians. If the evangelical worldview is deemed invalid in the public sphere, then the public sphere loses the value of being public. American discourse will be marked by paranoid conformity, rather than principled and earnest disagreement. And our ability to prophetically speak to one another and to our nation’s troubles will be restrained.

The right framework here is one of pluralism: the ability of many different kinds of people to live out their faith in public with and among those who deeply disagree with them. This is no easy challenge; it's painful and ugly and hard. But the alternative to is a thin, univocal culture, one in which the only disagreements we have are trivial. And that would be a shame."

I don't share many of the values to which Evangelicals subscribe but that is just the point. The issue is not how should I deal with people who have views with which I disagree. The measure is how would I want to be dealt with if I were the one with an unpopular view.

Apr 03, 2014

When I lecture on glo­bal Chris­tianity, I am sometimes asked whether, in retrospect, I would revise what I wrote many years ago in books like The Next Christendom. Us­u­ally my answer is no.

But in one critical area conditions are changing so quickly as to demand rethinking. Whereas I (and others) once presented Africa as a region of extreme poverty and deprivation, we now have to take account of economic development that in some regions is so rapid as to amount to a boom. We can only begin to outline the religious consequences. ...

... The main impact on Christian churches will like­ly fall into the category of “more of the same.” For some years now, older independent churches have faded in the face of competition from new de­nominations rooted in global Pentecostalism that emphasize the blessings of material prosperity. Some tailor their message to aspiring professional and entrepreneurial groups, which will become much more numerous in the coming decade. Charismatic mega­churches should boom.

Prosperity teachings never lack for critics. Nevertheless, such teachings usually in­clude important practical lessons for coping with the new globalized world—lessons, for example, in the responsible use of debt and credit. Latin American precedents suggest that these churches also provide a vital organizational focus for campaigns for social and political reform and civic improvement. Ex­pect more, rather than less, religious politics.

Other likely effects lie in the longer term. Increasingly, the demand for labor should draw more women into full-time paid employment, particularly in emerging service sectors. Expect to see more Western-style debates over issues of gender and sexuality, although framed strictly in terms of African traditions. What a pleasure it would be to see Africa’s churches en­during some of the familiar discontents of prosperity.

Feb 18, 2014

Tasks that seem mundane, or even difficult, can bring a sense of meaning over time.

Psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl once wrote, “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” For most people, feeling happy and finding life meaningful are both important and related goals. But do happiness and meaning always go together? It seems unlikely, given that many of the things that we regularly choose to do – from running marathons to raising children – are unlikely to increase our day-to-day happiness. Recent research suggests that while happiness and a sense of meaning often overlap, they also diverge in important and surprising ways. ...

... Interestingly, their findings suggest that money, contrary to popular sayings, can indeed buy happiness. Having enough money to buy what one needs in life, as well as what one desires, were also positively correlated with greater levels of happiness. However, having enough money seemed to make little difference in life’s sense of meaning. This same disconnect was recently found in a multi-national study conducted by Shigehiro Oishi and Ed Diener, who show that people from wealthy countries tend to be happier, however, they don’t see their lives as more meaningful. In fact, Oishi and Diener found that people from poorer countries tend to see their lives as more meaningful. ...

... Participants in the study who were more likely to agree with the statement, “I am a giver,” reported less happiness than people who were more likely to agree with, “I am a taker.” However, the “givers” reported higher levels of meaning in their lives compared to the “takers.” In addition, spending more time with friends was related to greater happiness but not more meaning. ...

... It is clear that a highly meaningful life may not always include a great deal of day-to-day happiness. And, the study suggests, our American obsession with happiness may be intimately related to a feeling of emptiness, or a life that lacks meaning.

Fascinating article. It made me think of two guys talking about a friend who had bought a $1,000 tie. The first guy says, "Buying that tie won't be him happiness." The second guy says, "Sure it will ... for about 24 hours."

It strikes me that happiness is more fleeting and driven by immediate circumstances while meaning has greater resilience, not easily influenced by the immediate circumstances of any given moment. I also expect, as hinted at the end of the article, that what many of us are genuinely persuing is meaning but mistaking happiness for meaning. I wonder if there is a role for the church in all of this? ;-)

Jan 16, 2014

Our friend and colleague Max Fisher over at Worldviews has posted another 40 maps that explain the world, building on his original classic of the genre. But this is Wonkblog. We're about charts. And one of the great things about charts is that they show not just how things are -- but how they're changing.

So we searched for charts that would tell not just the story of how the world is -- but where it's going. Some of these charts are optimistic, like the ones showing huge gains in life expectancy in poorer nations. Some are more worryisome -- wait till you see the one on endangered species. But together they tell a story of a world that's changing faster than at arguably any other time in human history. ...

As the author notes, we have challenges but we hardly descending into some global dystopia. I think these charts give a pretty holistic view. Here are a three examples. It was commonly believed that primitive societies were more peaceful and that modern civilization gave rise to unprecedented violence. This chart compares death rates by war in primitive societies as calculated by anthropologists to the death rates for Europe/USA in the 20th century. And then there is this:

The graphs point to environmental protection and adaptation as the biggest problems in the days ahead. Those challenges are not insurmountable. Energy sources like natural gas and nuclear power can be used in the interim on the way to practical renewable technologies. Genetically modified crops can help to reduce water consumption, increase yield, and improve hardiness. Innovations in fields like biotechnology, nanotechnology, and 3-D printing hold the promise of revolutionizing the world economy into a less wasteful and more affordable human existence for everyone. There is work to do but there is also much reason for hope of a better world.

Dec 12, 2013

We're living at a far more equal, peaceful, and prosperous time than the pontiff acknowledges....

Pope Francis is Times’ Person of the Year, an excellent pick in my estimation. He strikes me as man with incredible integrity. I’m enjoying watching him live into this new calling.

Of particular interest to me has been response to his Evangelii Gaudium, with the left gleeful about his condemnation of capitalism and the right going apoplectic about the same. In our age of bumper sticker sound bites, I don’t think either side is listening with appropriate nuance. I haven’t read and digested the whole document but I have read the sections that deal with economic issues. I don’t see a radical departure with what previous Pope’s have written.

Twenty years ago Pope John Paul II wrote the following in Centesimus Annus:

Can it perhaps be said that after the failure of communism capitalism is the victorious social system and the capitalism is the victorious social system and that capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society? Is this model which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World which are searching for the path of true economic and civil progress?

The answer is obviously complex. If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property, and the resulting responsibility for the means of production as well as free creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy,” “market economy,” or simply “free economy.” But if by “capitalism” is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative. (Centesimus Annus, 42)

I don’t find Pope Francis saying a great deal different although his emphasis may be a little different. We need to remember that John Paul II ministered under the tyranny of Soviet Communism while Francis did so under the tyranny of right-wing dictatorship. These differences are surely a factor.

The part that does trouble me some, as it does with an overwhelming number of religious figures who speak to economic issues, is a distorted picture of what is happening in the world. It isn’t what is said. It’s what’s missing. For the past century or two we have been living through the most astonishing surge in human flourishing in history. That reality needs to be brought into discussion every bit as much as the challenges and the injustices.

David Ropeik in How Risky Is It Really: Why Our Fears Don’t Always Match the Facts shows that we are innately inclined to fixate on threats and negative developments. People who do so aren’t stupid or ideological … they are human. All of us do it. The inclination to focus on threats is instinctive and has served human beings well over millennia. But in the face of very complex issues we need to bring our concerns into perspective with more objective analysis. Otherwise we run the risk of doing more harm than good. We need to approach problems with warm hearts and cool heads.

I have some minor quibbles with Tupy in the article but it brings important balance. I’ve documented some similar factors in past series like American Social Indicators and World Social Indicators, two series I intend to update next year. I think the challenge is to hear the Pope’s important calls for inclusion of the poor and his warning against our propensity to justify indifference. Not heeding the Pope's warnings is also to misunderstand the world. But we need to heed the warnings with an informed understanding of what is unfolding in the world. Read the Atalantic article and see what you think.

Sep 30, 2013

... Earlier this year, Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, my colleagues over at Trinity’s Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, decided to find out. In an email survey of nearly 2,000 students at 38 colleges and universities across the country, they asked, “In general would you describe yourself more as a religious, spiritual or secular person? Select One.”

The result, cross-tabulated with a series of other questions, is a portrait of a collective identity distinctly different from both the religious and the secular, representing (along with each of the others) roughly one-third of the college population. So who are those collegians who identify themselves as “spiritual” in America today?

1. They’re more likely to be female than male. In fact, while equal proportions of the young men and women call themselves religious, the former identify as secular versus spiritual by a ratio of over three to two; the latter, as spiritual versus secular by nearly two to one.

2. They are much more likely to believe in God than the Seculars, but the deity in question is more frequently a “higher power” than a personal God. ...

... Among the students surveyed, 31.8% identified their worldview as
Religious, 32.4% as Spiritual, and 28.2% as Secular. Within each group
there was a
remarkable level of cohesion on answers to questions covering a wide
array of issues, including political alignment, acceptance of evolution
and climate
change, belief in supernatural phenomena such as miracles or ghosts, and
trust in alternative practices such as homeopathy and astrology. ...

That’s changing, however, as churches face declining numbers and look
to new ministry models to make ends meet. Thumma sees more mainliners
cutting back to halftime or one-quarter-time packages for clergy, who
increasingly work second jobs. ...

... On this year's lists, we noticed many of the same trends we've seen in
the past. Among the recent trends, we continue to see multisite churches
becoming more and more common. Among the 100 Largest churches, we find
only 12 have a single campus (although one church did not report how
many campuses it has). On the Fastest-Growing list, the number with a
single campus is much greater—42, reflecting close to a split in the
number of churches that do and do not have multiple campuses.

Some once believed this move to grow via multiple campuses was a
temporary trend, but it appears to be a trend that's here to stay. While
it was once the domain of only the largest churches, we now see smaller
churches deploying the same methodology. What's interesting to me is
the number of churches that utilize a multisite methodology and are also
committed to church planting. The two are definitely not exclusive of
one another. I think this may have something to do with the missionary
heart of these churches. ...

When people search for a church to join, one early stage decision in
the process is whether to find a denominational or non-denominational
church. Are denominations important? Is it good for a congregation to be
part of a denomination?

On the one hand, independent, non-denominational megachurches and
their pastors too often feature in media headlines, as reporters and
editors almost gloat in uncovering the latest scandal. Even when there
is no scandal, the retirement or death of an independent church pastor
(regardless of the congregation's size) will often set that congregation
on an irreversible downward glide path toward institutional oblivion.

On the other hand, conventional wisdom has it that denominations in
general, and mainline Protestant denominations like The Episcopal Church
in particular, are dying anachronisms.

... Launched in September 2011, FaithStreet is one of those brilliant
innovations designed to meet a big need with simple technology. Churches
fill out an online profile with key information such as location and
contact numbers. Web visitors can easily browse churches near them that
fit their needs. But Coughlin's web application is an unorthodox
business model: FaithStreet doesn't make money unless people give to
their local churches. Churches that use FaithStreet encourage attendees
to give online, from which FaithStreet takes a cut. "What's great about
the model is we win only when the church does," says Coughlin. ...

... In fact, I believe that the notion that almost all scientists are atheists is a myth. A recent Pew poll agrees
with my view: 51% of polled American scientists believing in some kind
of deity. While that rate is far lower than the general public in the
US, it is still a majority. ...

... The sharing ministries are not insurance: there's no guarantee that a
given bill will be covered. Instead, it's like a co-op, where members
decide what procedures to cover, and then all pitch in to cover the cost
as group.

"It's a group of people, in this case Christians,
who band together and agree that they want to share one another's
burdens," says Andrea Miller, medical director for the largest Christian
health-insurance alternative, Medi-Share.

She says members put
aside a certain amount of money every month, which then goes to other
Christians who need help paying their medical bills. Medi-Share's
monthly fees vary, but that family options "average less than $300 a month."

There
are a few requirements to fulfill before participating, Miller says.
The first is that you have to be Christian. "Second, you need to agree
to living a Christian lifestyle, including no smoking, including not
abusing alcohol or drugs," she says.

To constitute as a health
care sharing ministry — and therefore be exempt from the Affordable Care
Act requirements — the nonprofit has to have been in existence since
1999 (Medi-Share has existed since '93). The ministries also have an
independent accounting firm conduct a publicly available annual audit. ...

8. At Biologos, "Reflections on Reading Genesis 1-3: John Walton’s World Tour": Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Earlier this year, Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, my colleagues over at Trinity’s Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture,
decided to find out. In an email survey of nearly 2,000 students at 38
colleges and universities across the country, they asked, “In general
would you describe yourself more as a religious, spiritual or secular
person? Select One.”

The result,
cross-tabulated with a series of other questions, is a portrait of a
collective identity distinctly different from both the religious and the
secular, representing (along with each of the others) roughly one-third
of the college population. So who are those collegians who identify
themselves as “spiritual” in America today?

1. They’re more likely to be female than male. In fact, while equal
proportions of the young men and women call themselves religious, the
former identify as secular versus spiritual by a ratio of over three to
two; the latter, as spiritual versus secular by nearly two to one.

2. They are much more likely to believe in God than the Seculars, but
the deity in question is more frequently a “higher power” than a
personal God.

- See more at: http://marksilk.religionnews.com/2013/09/26/first-the-nones-now-the-spirituals/#sthash.mpIr5pSX.dpuf

Earlier this year, Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, my colleagues over at Trinity’s Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture,
decided to find out. In an email survey of nearly 2,000 students at 38
colleges and universities across the country, they asked, “In general
would you describe yourself more as a religious, spiritual or secular
person? Select One.”

The result,
cross-tabulated with a series of other questions, is a portrait of a
collective identity distinctly different from both the religious and the
secular, representing (along with each of the others) roughly one-third
of the college population. So who are those collegians who identify
themselves as “spiritual” in America today?

1. They’re more likely to be female than male. In fact, while equal
proportions of the young men and women call themselves religious, the
former identify as secular versus spiritual by a ratio of over three to
two; the latter, as spiritual versus secular by nearly two to one.

2. They are much more likely to believe in God than the Seculars, but
the deity in question is more frequently a “higher power” than a
personal God.

- See more at: http://marksilk.religionnews.com/2013/09/26/first-the-nones-now-the-spirituals/#sthash.mpIr5pSX.dpuf

... Two findings of the study itself feed my doubts. One
is the low percentage of religious progressives (11%) who say that
their religion is “the most important thing in my life” compared to the
high proportion (54%) of religious conservatives saying the same thing. ...

... A second finding feeds my doubts about the potential impact of religious progressives. It
turns out that 87% of religious progressives view religion as a
“private matter” that should be kept out of public debate on political
and social issues. That view may
provide a negative counter to aggressive religious intervention on
behalf of traditional sexual and personal norms, but it does not provide
much ground for religious engagement on the kinds of issues that the
study puts before us – helping the poor, maintaining the safety net, and
opposing inequality. ...

I think he is on to something. I do not believe that most religious progressives have religion and church at the center of their lives and social networks, at least not in the same numbers as conservatives. Their religion functions more in an advisory copacity to be considered with a variety of other inputs, rather than as a guiding force. The vitality of the religious right has been based on being able to marry this guiding force to a particular political ideology. I don't think that will ever be the same for religious progressives. My perception is that the Religious Right is more inclined to be animated by out of their religious conviction to pursue political ends while progressives are motivated by their political convictions, seeing the church as chaplain to their cause.

Jul 24, 2013

... Around the world and in the United States, where the faith was founded, the Mormon Church
is grappling with a wave of doubt and disillusionment among members who
encountered information on the Internet that sabotaged what they were
taught about their faith, according to interviews with dozens of Mormons
and those who study the church.

“I felt like I had an earthquake under my feet,” said Mr. Mattsson, now
an emeritus area authority. “Everything I’d been taught, everything I’d
been proud to preach about and witness about just crumbled under my
feet. It was such a terrible psychological and nearly physical
disturbance.”

Mr. Mattsson’s decision to go public with his disaffection, in a church
whose top leaders commonly deliberate in private, is a sign that the
church faces serious challenges not just from outside but also from
skeptics inside.

Greg Prince,
a Mormon historian and businessman in Washington who has held local
leadership positions in the church, shares Mr. Mattsson’s doubts.
“Consider a Catholic cardinal suddenly going to the media and saying
about his own church, ‘I don’t buy a lot of this stuff,’ ” Mr. Prince
said. “That’s the level we’re talking about here.”

He said of Mr. Mattsson, “He is, as far as I know, the highest-ranking
church official who has gone public with deep concerns, who has had a
faith crisis and come forward to say he’s going to talk about it because
maybe that will help us all to resolve it.”

Every faith has its skeptics and detractors, but the Mormon Church’s
history creates special challenges. The church was born in America only
183 years ago, and its founder and prophet, Joseph Smith, and his
disciples left behind reams of papers that still exist, documenting
their work, exposing their warts and sometimes contradicting one
another....

Jul 01, 2013

The booming self-help industry, not to mention the cash cow of New Age
spirituality, has one message: be authentic! Charming as American
optimism may be, its 21st-century incarnation as the search for
authenticity deserves pause. The power of this new version of the
American dream can be felt through the stridency of its imperatives:
Live fully! Realize yourself! Be connected! Achieve well-being!

Despite the frequent claim that we are living in a secular age
defined by the death of God, many citizens in rich Western democracies
have merely switched one notion of God for another — abandoning their
singular, omnipotent (Christian or Judaic or whatever) deity reigning
over all humankind and replacing it with a weak but all-pervasive idea
of spirituality tied to a personal ethic of authenticity and a liturgy
of inwardness. The latter does not make the exorbitant moral demands of
traditional religions, which impose bad conscience, guilt, sin, sexual
inhibition and the rest.

Unlike
the conversions that transfigure the born-again’s experience of the
world in a lightning strike, this one occurred in stages: a postwar
existentialist philosophy of personal liberation and “becoming who you
are” fed into a 1960s counterculture that mutated into the most selfish
conformism, disguising acquisitiveness under a patina of personal
growth, mindfulness and compassion. Traditional forms of morality that
required extensive social cooperation in relation to a hard reality
defined by scarcity have largely collapsed and been replaced with this
New Age therapeutic culture of well-being that does not require
obedience or even faith — and certainly not feelings of guilt. Guilt
must be shed; alienation, both of body and mind, must be eliminated,
most notably through yoga practice after a long day of mind-numbing
work.

In the gospel of authenticity, well-being has become the
primary goal of human life. Rather than being the by-product of some
collective project, some upbuilding of the New Jerusalem, well-being is
an end in itself. The stroke of genius in the ideology of authenticity
is that it doesn’t really require a belief in anything, and certainly
not a belief in anything that might transcend the serene and contented
living of one’s authentic life and baseline well-being. In this, one can
claim to be beyond dogma. ...

Mar 16, 2013

1. The Economisthas an interesting graph showing the captialism has led to greater happiness in member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (former Soviet Union countries excluding the three baltic countries.)

There are two ways to define economic mobility: 1) absolute mobility, whether each generation is financially better off than the one before; and 2) relative mobility,
whether you can change your income rank vs. your parents. Most
Americans probably think both measures important. We want to be more
prosperous than mom and dad, but also be able to change our
circumstances and make our dreams come true. ...

... A San Francisco Fed study –
using data tracking families since 1968 — looks at both versions of the
American Dream, finding one healthier than the other. Looking
at absolute mobility, researchers Leila Bengali and Mary Daly find the
United States “highly mobile.” Over the sample period, 67% of US adults
had higher family incomes than their parents, including 83% of those in
the lowest birth quintile, or bottom 20% (versus 54% for children born
into the top quintile, or top 20%.) ...

... It’s true that conservatives’
standard proposals for privatizing Social Security and
voucherizing Medicare would shift risk onto beneficiaries -- but
this plainly isn’t a necessary consequence of the basic
principle. I agree with Konczal that adequate insurance against
economic risk, underwritten by the government, is essential. I
also agree that most conservatives aren’t interested in
providing that guarantee. That’s exactly why liberals ought to
take up the ownership society themselves.

Ownership entails risk, it’s true, but insurance can
minimize it. Ownership also provides control, independence and
self-respect -- things it wouldn’t hurt liberals to be more
interested in. And when it comes to inequality and stagnating
middle incomes, ownership can give wage slaves a stake in the
nation’s economic capital.

Done right, an equity component in government-backed saving
for retirement could be the best idea liberals have had since
the earned-income tax credit (oh, sorry, that started out as a
conservative idea as well). ...

Researchers already knew humans, animals and plants have evolved in
response to Earth's gravity and they are able to sense it. What we are
still discovering is how the processes occurring within the cells of the
human and plant bodies are affected by the more intense gravity, or
hypergravity, that would be found on a large planet, or the microgravity
that resembles the conditions on a space craft.

According to estimations, engineers expect the the store to generate
around 265,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) per year. Store operation will only
require 200,000 kWh, so perhaps that extra wattage could be pumped back
into the grid or used to power nearby utilities.

When people can browse potential dates online like items in a catalog, geo-locate hook-ups on an exercise bike just seven feet away, arrange a spontaneous group date with the app Grouper or arrange a bevy of blind dates in succession with Crazy Blind Date, it makes me wonder if all this newfound technological convenience has, in fact, made romance that much more elusive. Now, we may be more concerned with what someone isn't rather than what they are. And as that twenty-something entrepreneur reminded me over coffee, services like OkCupid, and even Facebook, sap a lot of the mystique out of those first few dates. So, sure, it may be easier than ever to score a date, but what kind of date will it really be?

Many of us have read the Bible as if it were merely a mosaic of little
bits – theological bits, moral bits, historical-critical bits, sermon
bits, devotional bits. But when we read the Bible in such a fragmented
way, we ignore it’s divine author’s intention to shape our lives through
its story. All humanity communities live out some story that provides a
context for understanding the meaning of history and gives shape and
direction to their lives. If we allow the Bible to become fragmented, it
is in danger of being absorbed into whatever other story is
shaping our culture, and it will thus cease to shape our lives as it
should. Idolatry has twisted the dominant cultural story of the secular
Western world. If as believers we allow this story (rather than the
Bible) to become the foundation of our thought and action, then our
lives will manifest not the truths of Scripture, but the lies of an
idolatrous culture. Hence the unity of Scripture is no minor matter: a
fragmented Bible may actually produce theologically orthodox, morally
upright, warmly pious idol worshippers! (p. 12).

I wish someone had taught me basic leadership skills.
“I was well grounded in theology and Bible exegesis, but seminary did
not prepare me for the real world of real people. It would have been
great to have someone walk alongside me before my first church.”

I needed to know a lot more about personal financial issues.
“No one ever told me about minister’s housing, social security,
automobile reimbursement, and the difference between a package and a
salary. I got burned in my first church.”

I wish I had been given advice on how to deal with power groups and power people in the church.
“I got it all wrong in my first two churches. I was fired outright from
the first one and pressured out in the second one. Someone finally and
courageously pointed out how I was messing things up almost from the
moment I began in a new church. I am so thankful that I am in the ninth
year of a happy pastorate in my third church.” ...

Mar 14, 2013

In recent months, observers have remarked on the growing number of
Americans who claim no religious affiliation (the “nones”), whose
numbers are highest among the young. We can argue about just what these
numbers mean, but possibly they do mark the beginning of a secularizing
trend, a drift toward European conditions. Surprisingly perhaps, given
our customary assumptions about Latin America, conditions in several
Latin American nations mirror those in the U.S. Increasingly these
countries are developing a European coloring. ...

... Whatever the causes, the European experience indicates that countries
where the fertility rate falls well below replacement (2.1 children per
woman) might be facing rapid secularization.

With that figure in
mind, let’s look at the countries of Latin America, and especially the
most economically developed ones. A few decades ago, all had classic
Third World population profiles and very large families. In the 1960s,
for instance, Brazil’s fertility rate hovered around 6 children per
woman, alarming those who warned of a global population explosion. By
2012, though, Brazil’s figure was 1.82, far below replacement level.
Chile and Uruguay both record similar rates of 1.87. Argentina is still
above replacement, but the rate is falling fast. That’s a social
revolution in progress—as well as a gender revolution.

In
religious terms, these countries present a complex picture, with strong
evidence of a continuing passion for religion. Brazil is home to some
spectacularly successful Pentecostal megachurches, which Catholic clergy
seek to imitate in order to hold on to believers. New evangelical
churches are also booming in the other Latin nations, to the point that
Protestants claim to be living through a new Reformation.

At the
same time, though, signs of secularization appear that would have been
unthinkable not long ago. Nine percent of Brazilians now say they follow
no religion, and the proportion of nones is much higher among those
under 20. Uruguay emerges as the region’s most secular country, with 40
percent having no religious affiliation. ...

Mar 13, 2013

Poor nations have the highest proportion of people who identify as religious

The world's poorest nations are also some of its most religious – but does that mean religion can't flourish in a prosperous society?

Gregory Paul doesn't think it can. After constructing a "Successful Societies Scale" that compared 25 socioeconomic indicators against statistics on religious belief and practice in 17 developed nations, the Baltimore-based paleontologist concluded in a 2009 study that "religion is most able to thrive in seriously dysfunctional societies."

Gregory, who is a freelance researcher not affiliated with any institution, compiled data on everything from homicide rates and income inequality to infant mortality and teenage pregnancies and found that the societies that scored the best on socioeconomic indicators were also the most secular.

"The correlation between religiosity and successful societies is somewhere around 0.7. Zero is no correlation and one is a perfect correlation, so it's a really good correlation, and it's not just an accident," he told CBC News. ...

... Sociologists have argued that the social benefits of religion take on
greater importance, the fewer resources and the less control people
have over their own lives.

"Religion becomes less central as people's lives become less
vulnerable to the constant threat of death, disease and misfortune,"
Norris and Inglehart write in their 2004 book, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide.

"As lives gradually become more comfortable and secure, people in more
affluent societies usually grow increasingly indifferent to religious
values, more skeptical of supernatural beliefs and less willing to
become actively engaged in religious institutions." ...

... "The United States is one of the wealthier societies, and yet, it's
still quite religious," said Phil Zuckerman, a sociology professor at
Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif., who has studied secularization in
Scandinavian countries and wrote a book about it called Society Without God.

"I think it's when you have what we might call 'existential security'
— so, wealth and prosperity are part of that, but by that we [also]
mean the bulk of people in society have access to housing, health care,
jobs. They live in a relatively stable, democratic society without much
in the way of existential threats to their lives or their culture." ...

... "Europe and the United States seem to be going in very different directions," said Marcus Noland,
a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics
in Washington, D.C., who has written about religion and economic growth.

"One of the arguments is that the United States has a much livelier
and open market for religion than do, say, countries in Scandinavia,
where you have established churches." [Notably Rodney Stark]

But Zuckerman and other sociologists attribute the U.S.'s outlier status to socioeconomic inequality. ...

Mar 09, 2013

1. The United States had its financial bubble. Europe is having one too. Is China next? If it is, it could reshape the global economy and radically reshape Chinese government. Here is an interesting piece about China's real estate bubble.

... I like the idea of a breaking the Industrial Revolution into stages,
but I would define them in more fundamental terms. The first Industrial
Revolution was the harnessing of large-scale man-made power, which began
with the steam engine. The internal combustion engine, electric power,
and other sources of energy are just further refinements of this basic
idea. The second Industrial Revolution would be the development of
interchangeable parts and the assembly line, which made possible
inexpensive mass production with relatively unskilled labor. The Third
Industrial Revolution would not be computers, the Internet, or mobile
phones, because up to now these have not been industrial tools;
they have been used for moving information, not for making things.
Instead, the rise of computers and the Internet is just a warm-up for
the real Third Industrial Revolution, which is the full integration of information technology with industrial production.

The effect of the Third Industrial Revolution will be to collapse the
distance between the design of a product and its physical manufacture,
in much the same way that the Internet has eliminated the distance
between the origination of a new idea and its communication to an
audience. ...

... Eventually all of the creative ferment of the industrial revolution pays
off in a big “whoosh,” but it takes many decades, depending on where
you draw the starting line of course. A look at the early 19th century
is sobering, or should be, for anyone doing fiscal budgeting today. But
it is also optimistic in terms of the larger picture facing humanity
over the longer run.

5. What are the contours of income inequality in the United States? This 40 minute video by Emmanuel Saez offers some important insights.

6. Futurist Ray Kurzweil is a little too sensationalist for my taste but this vid offers interesting food for thought about nanotechnology and the future sports. We will even be able to have meaningful sports competition?

The recovered wealth - most of it from higher stock prices - has been
flowing mainly to richer Americans. By contrast, middle class wealth is
mostly in the form of home equity, which has risen much less.

"... In spite of wearing a redshirt, there is
only an 8.6% chance of a member of the operations or engineering
departments becoming a casualty. These personnel should ensure that
their life insurance plans are based on their departments and not their
uniform color.

Although Enterprise crew members in
redshirts suffer many more casualties than crew members in other
uniforms, they suffer fewer casualties than crew members in gold
uniforms when the entire population size is considered. Only 10% of the
entire redshirt population was lost during the three year run of Star Trek.
This is less than the 13.4% of goldshirts, but more than the 5.1% of
blueshirts. What is truly hazardous is not wearing a redshirt, but being
a member of the security department. The red-shirted members of
security were only 20.9% of the entire crew, but there is a 61.9% chance
that the next casualty is in a redshirt and 64.5% chance this
red-shirted victim is a member of the security department. The remaining
redshirts, operations and engineering make up the largest single
population, but only have an 8.6% chance of being a casualty.

Red uniform shirts are safe, as long as the wearer is not in the security department."

Robots are getting more powerful. That need not be bad news for workers. ...

... Historically, technological advances have been relatively benign for
workers. Labour-market trends through the 19th and 20th centuries show
surprising continuity, according to Lawrence Katz of Harvard University
and Robert Margo of Boston University. In recent decades, for example,
computerisation and automation have displaced “middle-skilled” workers
at the same time as employment among high- and low-skilled workers has
increased. This “hollowing out” is not new, Messrs Katz and Margo note.
Early industrialisation had similar effects. Middle-skilled artisans,
like trained weavers, were put out of work by industrial textile
production, but the fortunes of less-skilled factory workers and
white-collar factory managers steadily improved. Mechanisation’s
insatiable appetite for routine work of all types has yet to create mass
unemployment. Quite the opposite.

The worry is that technology now has its sights set on non-routine
tasks as well as mundane ones. Yet Mr Autor notes that just because a
skilled job can be automated does not mean it will be. The number of
workers used to build Nissan vehicles varies a lot between Japan, where
labour is expensive, and India, where it is abundant and cheap. The
relative cost of different types of workers matters for firms as they
choose how to deploy new technologies. ...

• Creativity generates economic value.
Creativity is the source of profit. Yes, efficiency can squeeze more
out of what exists, but creativity gives us originality, which
translates into a market advantage and big margins.

• Creativity drives capitalism.
These past few years we have been victimized by the disastrous results
of “creativity” applied to the financial sector (mortgage-backed
securities, for starters). What we lost sight of is that the scaling of
creativity to actually make things of value sold in the marketplace is
the true heart of our economic system. It is the true generator of net
new jobs, wealth, and tax revenue.

• Creative destruction is crucial to economic growth.
Crony capitalism, which relies on monopoly and political power, is
antithetical to entrepreneurial capitalism. A faster cycle of birth,
growth, and death of companies boosts creativity, economic value, and
growth.

The bottom line: For the first time in decades, several key economic drivers have created a competitive advantage for the U.S. that will encourage corporate strategic decisions on capital allocation and acquisitions for generations to come.

Here's why:

1. Cheap and abundant natural gas. ...

2. Innovation. Despite talk of a brain drain, the U.S. remains the global innovation leader, maintaining a position enjoyed for 50 years. ...

3. Rule of law. Without the means to protect intellectual property, it cannot be exploited for competitive advantage. ...

4. Human capital. The wage gap between the U.S. and China has been shrinking. ...

5. De-complexity. Western multinationals continue to struggle with management of operations in developing countries. ...

6. Public policy and abundance. The federal government appears to be seizing the opportunity to promote job growth at home.

"Picture an assembly line not that isn’t made up of robotic arms spewing sparks to weld heavy steel, but a warehouse of plastic-spraying printers producing light, cheap and highly efficient automobiles.

If Jim Kor’s dream is realized, that’s exactly how the next generation of urban runabouts will be produced. His creation is called the Urbee 2 and it could revolutionize parts manufacturing while creating a cottage industry of small-batch automakers intent on challenging the status quo. ..."

Throughout history, war and innovation have gone hand in hand,
whether it’s breakthroughs out of heavily funded R&D programs
or makeshift contraptions thrown together with spare parts. Soldiers are
trained to use the technology on hand to get the job done, one way or
the other.

But how would military operations change if soldiers on the
battlefield could have the best of both worlds: access to expert
engineers able to fabricate custom-designed fixes right on-the-spot and
in very little time? ...

"It may sound strange and far out, but it’s actually quite simple. 4D
printing is being billed as a process where synthetic objects can change
and adapt themselves to the environment. In a recent TED interview, Tibbits compared the process of 4D printing to the process of natural adaptation:

Natural systems obviously have this built in — the
ability to have a desire. Plants, for example, generally have the desire
to grow towards light and they generate energy from the translation of
photosynthesis, carbon dioxide to oxygen, and so on. This is extremely
difficult to build into synthetic systems — the ability to “want” or
need something and know how to change itself in order to acquire it, or
the ability to generate its own energy source. If we combine the
processes that natural systems offer intrinsically (genetic
instructions, energy production, error correction) with those artificial
or synthetic (programmability for design and scaffold, structure,
mechanisms) we can potentially have extremely large-scale
quasi-biological and quasi-synthetic architectural organisms."

The music industry, the first media business to be consumed by the
digital revolution, said on Tuesday that its global sales rose last year
for the first time since 1999, raising hopes that a long-sought
recovery might have begun.

The increase, of 0.3 percent, was tiny, and the total revenue, $16.5
billion, was a far cry from the $38 billion that the industry took in at
its peak more than a decade ago. Still, even if it is not time for the
record companies to party like it’s 1999, the figures, reported Tuesday
by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, provide
significant encouragement.

8. Teleworking: The myth of working from home from the BBC. "Yahoo has banned its staff from "remote" working. After years of many predicting working from home as the future for everybody, why is it not the norm?"

"Reasons for high unemployment among the young include ineffective education systems (the share of early school dropouts is 20% in Italy and 30% in Spain) and dual labour markets with highly protected jobs for older employees. The good performance of Germany is not least a result of the German apprenticeship system, which facilitates labour market access for school leavers by lowering the company’s costs for employing them. The OECD’s latest “Going for Growth” report recommends reforms to strengthen the vocational training systems as one of the most effective ways to fight structural youth unemployment. This would also be a reasonable starting point for the EU’s youth employment programme."

"What’s most revealing about this study is that, like earlier research,
it suggests that students’ preference for printed textbooks is reflects
the real pedagogical advantages they experience in using the format:
fewer distractions, deeper engagement, better comprehension and
retention, and greater flexibility to accommodating idiosyncratic study
habits. Electronic textbooks will certainly get better, and will
certainly have advantages of their own, but they won’t replicate the
particular advantages inherent to the tangible form of the printed book."

The Catholic Church has struggled to bring in young members in the
United States. Less than half of U.S. Hispanics between 18 and 29
identify as Catholic, compared with the 60+ percent of Hispanics older
than 50.

The narrative of decline in the mainline church underestimates the continuing influence of its members, says a religion researcher.

16.Some interesting observations by NYU psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He says we tend to process our social world through three lenses: Social distance, hierarchy, and disgust. Conservatives tend to have a lower threshold of revulsion while liberals, and praticularly libertarians, have a higher threshold.

"The Easterlin paradox suggest that in terms of human happiness -- a
squishy concept to be sure -- there is a limit to economic growth beyond
which there really is just no point in attaining more wealth. Further, a
decoupling between income and happiness at some threshold would imply
that GDP would not be a good measure of welfare, we would need some
other metric.

A recent paper (PDF) by Daniel Sacks, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers argues that the Easterlin paradox is also wrong. ..."

"In those days, most people were farmers, for whom literacy’s costs
generally outweighed its benefits. However, in an urbanized society
with skilled occupations, literacy pays off. As urbanization gradually
increased in the late Middle Ages, Jews came to fill high-skilled
occupations. Botticini and Eckstein argue that literacy, rather than
persecution, is what led Jews into these occupations."

"But while progressives would clearly mock this policy [trickle-down economics], modern day
urbanism often resembles nothing so much as trickle-down economics,
though this time mostly advocated by those who would self-identify as
being from the left. The idea is that through investments catering to
the fickle and mobile educated elite and the high end businesses that
employ and entertain them, cities can be rejuvenated in a way that
somehow magically benefits everybody and is socially fair."

“Capitalism is the greatest creation humanity has done for social cooperation. It has lifted humanity out of the dirt. In statistics we discovered when we were researching the book, about 200 years ago when capitalism was created, 85% of the people alive lived on $1 a day. Today, that number is 16%. Still too high, but capitalism is wiping out poverty across the world. 200 years ago illiteracy rates were 90%. Today, they are down to about 14%. 200 years ago the average lifespan was 30. Today it is 68 across the world, 78 in the States, and almost 82 in Japan. This is due to business. This is due to capitalism. And it doesn’t get credit for it. Most of the time, business is portrayed by its enemies as selfish and greedy and exploitative, yet it’s the greatest value creator in the world.”

9. Economist Gavin Kennedy with some interesting thoughts on the relationship between the state and the economy in developing nations:

The problem is to achieve the right balance between a competitive market economy and an effective state: markets where possible; the state where necessary.

"... What a sweet picture this conjures: the stay-at-home dad nurturing his
children, looking after the house and helping support his wife in her
budding career and shelving his own big ambitions for later. Now it gets
a little awkward. There is no adorable kid, nor plans to have one. No
starter home that needs knocking into shape. I'm not just doing this
temporarily until I find something meaningful to do. I’m
actually a full-time homemaker ... not stay-at-home dad but stay-at-home
dude. A conversational pause. Where do you mentally file this guy?
Usually I just change the subject. ..."

A new study shows that high-earning women are more likely to let their houses be messy than to hire a housekeeper or get their husbands and kids to pitch in. ...

... "You can purchase substitutes for your own time, you can get your husband to do more, or you can all just do less," Killewald says. "Whether women outsource housework in particular has less to do with resources, but whether or not paid labor is viewed as an appropriate strategy for undertaking domestic work.

In particular, researchers found that 40% of people say they would avoid someone who unfriended them on Facebook, while 50% say they would not avoid a person who unfriended them. Women were more likely than men to avoid someone who unfriended them, the researchers found.

... Libraries are responding to the decline of print in a variety of creative ways, trying to remain relevant – especially to younger people – by embracing the new technology. Many, such as New York’s Queens Public Library, are reinventing themselves as centers for classes, job training, and simply hanging out. In one radical example, a new $1.5 million library scheduled to open in San Antonio, Texas, this fall will be completely book-free, with its collection housed exclusively on tablets, laptops, and e-readers. “Think of an Apple store,” the Bexar County judge who is leading the effort told NPR. It’s a flashy and seductive package.

But libraries are about more than just e-readers or any other media, as important as those things are. They are about more than just buildings such as the grand edifices erected by Carnegie money, or the sleek and controversial new design for the New York Public Library’s central branch. They are also about human beings and their relationships, specifically, the relationship between librarians and patrons. And that is the relationship that the foundation created by Microsoft co-founder’s Paul G. Allen is seeking to build in a recent round of grants to libraries in the Pacific Northwest. ...

3-D printers can produce gun parts, aircraft wings, food and a lot more,
but this new 3-D printed product may be the craziest thing yet: human
embryonic stem cells. Using stem cells as the "ink" in a 3-D printer,
researchers in Scotland hope to eventually build 3-D printed organs and
tissues. A team at Heriot-Watt University used a specially designed
valve-based technique to deposit whole, live cells onto a surface in a
specific pattern.

Feb 02, 2013

Today is the day our advanced technological culture turns to a cute furry rodent in Pennsylvania for a weather forecast. (The only thing a groundhog foretells in my yard is that I'm probably going to need some new landscaping.) Happy Groundhog Day!

"In the course of our strategic planning work with clients, we've
identified the things that make the difference between visions that fall
flat and those that turn on. Here's a no-nonsense summary of those
elements that you can use as a guide when you develop your strategic
plan."

"In this way a conception of subsidiarity “from below” is focused on the location of sovereignty from the “bottom up” rather than on the delegation of authority from the “top down.” We see these variegated approaches to subsidiarity and sovereignty work out in diverse ways in later centuries. It is with these different lenses of subsidiarity “from above” and “from below” that we can better understand the developments of the Roman Catholic principle of subsidiarity as such and the neo-Calvinist articulation of “sphere sovereignty” in the late nineteenth century and beyond."

"Pally’s essay is framed around the thesis that these evangelicals have “left the right.” But left it for what? What she describes is really another vision of conservatism: church-based charity in lieu of a government safety net; exemptions from government regulation for religious groups; federal funding of religious activities; and persistent sexual puritanism. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say they’ve left the radical right and are in the process of creating a new religious right, stripped of harsh rhetoric but still undergirded by conservative ideology. Which is a movement worth chronicling, but not, as Pally intimates, as the new saviors of civility in our religiously-inflected politics."

"In the past scientists have warned that up to five per cent of species are at risk of dying-out as a result of climate change, deforestation and development.

But a new analysis by the University of New Zealand found that this figure was five times greater than reality because the number of animals living in the wild in the first place had been over estimated."

10. I've written before that fear is not an effective motivator for long term change. This is particularly true for some climate change and environmental activism. You need to make new behaviors fun and engaging. WWF appears to have taken this strategy to heart. (Hard to go wrong with anthropomorphized critters but maybe they should consider the article immediately above.)

From the time of Charles Darwin science has painted a picture of our earliest ancestor in the image of a chimpanzee. Scientific American editor Katherine Harmon explains how new fossil evidence is redrawing the lines of human evolution.

Actually, I think we already know who our first ancestor was.

12. For the most part (with a few exceptions), when it comes to movies, if you can't tell your story in less than two hours, then I think you didn't edit the movie well. Hollywood would apparently beg to differ. Why Movies Today Are Longer Than Ever Before

"The average of the highest-grossing films from 20 years ago is 118.4 minutes compared to this year's 141.6 minutes."

Jan 31, 2013

Sociologist Peter Berger concludes this article with this observation:

... But I do want to make a general observation: In all these cases the
authorities accused of violating the plaintiffs’ rights operate with a
definition of religion as a private matter to be kept out of public
space. There is here a general issue of government overreach, as clearly
illustrated by the (still unresolved) attempt by the Obama
administration to force Catholic institutions to provide contraception
coverage in their employees’ health plans. Beyond that, though, there is
a very ideological view of the place of religion in society. In other
words, religion is to be an activity engaged in by consenting adults in
private. The attorney for the Judeo-Christian side in the aforementioned
American case had it quite right when he compared the treatment of his
client’s religion with measures of disease control. This is not an
attitude one would expect to find in a Western democracy. It is
curiously reminiscent of policies toward religion in Communist countries
and toward non-Muslims under Islamic rule.

An aggressive secularism seems to be on the march in all these cases.
It seems more at home in Europe, which is far more secularized than
America. Even in the United Kingdom, it seems, the drums of the French
Revolution still reverberate. But how is one to explain this sort of
secularism in the United States? The “nones”—that is, those who say
“none” when asked for their religious affiliation by pollsters—are a
very mixed lot. One theme that comes through is disappointment with
organized religion. There is an anti-Christian edge to this, since
Christian churches continue to be the major religious institutions in
this country. Disappointment then, or disillusion—but why the aggressive
hostility? There is yet another theme that comes through in the survey
data: An identification of churches (and that means mainly Christian
ones) with intolerance and repression. I think that this is significant.

Let me venture a sociological hypothesis here: The new American
secularism is in defense of the sexual revolution. Since the 1960s there
has indeed been a sexual revolution in America. It has been very
successful in changing the mores and the law. It should not be
surprising that many people, especially younger ones, enjoy the new
libidinous benefits of this revolution. Whether one approves or deplores
the new sexual culture, it seems unlikely to be reversed. Yet Christian
churches (notably the Catholic and Evangelical ones) are in the
forefront of those who do want to reverse the libertine victory. Its
beneficiaries are haunted by the nightmare of being forced into chastity
belts by an all too holy alliance of clerics and conservative
politicians. No wonder they are hostile!

Jan 30, 2013

Despite a deep drop in the number of Americans who identify with a
particular faith, the country could be on the cusp of a religious
renaissance, says Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll.

Grounded in more than a million Gallup interviews, Newport’s new book, God Is Alive and Well,
argues that the aging of the baby boomers, the influx of Hispanic
immigrants and the links between religion and health could portend a
bright future for faith in America. [The following interview was edited for length and clarity.]

Why did you write this book?

I
think religion is extremely important in America today. All of our
research shows that, and I wanted to get empirical data about religion
out there, rather than just speculation.

We here at Gallup have
had a tracking project since 2008. We do 350,000 interviews a year,
which is a huge and unique dataset that nobody else has. And personally,
I grew up in a religious background and always found it interesting. ...

Of course, this caught my eye ...

You write that mainline Protestants are pretty much doing everything wrong in terms of growing their churches. Why is that?

For
any group to grow, whether it’s a country or a church, you have to have
more people coming in than going out. For example, the Catholic Church
holds its own in terms of percentage of the American population because
of the in-migration of Hispanics. But there is no massive in-migration
of Protestants.

Second, there’s been no evidence that they’ve been
able to evangelize effectively. And third, one way you grow is to have
high fertility rates. Mormons are doing that well because their theology
encourages big families. But Presbyterians, for example, have fewer
children on average [than other Americans]. So, if you look at all the
ways churches could grow, the mainline Protestants haven’t been able to
hit the nail on the head with any of them. —RNS

... If the nation’s independent and
nondenominational churches were combined into a single group they would
represent the third largest cluster of religious adherents in the
country, following the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist
Convention; second largest in the number of churches – following the
Southern Baptist. Overall, this research found over 35,000 churches
representing more than 12,200,000 adherents. In total, four percent of
the US population worships in an independent or nondenominational
church.

And the phenomenon is on the rise. Our study
identifies a larger number of people engaged in nondenominational
churches than Barry Kosmin found in the American Religious Identification Survey
in 2008 where they estimated 8 million Americans identified as
nondenominational Christians. In their studies, this count was up
significantly from only 0.1% or 194,000 in 1990. According to the General Social Survey,
the percent of Protestants claiming “no denomination or
non-denominational” has risen from roughly four percent in the 1970s to
fifteen percent in 2006. (The Ties that Bind: Network Overlap among Independent Congregations Christopher D. Bader Christopher P. Scheitle and Buster Smith).

Pew’s Religious Landscape Study
also found significant numbers of Americans affiliate with independent
and nondenominational churches, although the exact number and percent is
not entirely clear given how they divided their labeling. It is
absolutely clear, as Kosmin said recently,
that “The rise of non-denominational Christianity is probably one of
the strongest trends in the last two decades…. It is nearly as sharp an
increase as the no-religion response.” Additionally, the Baylor Survey of Religion report claims non-denominational churches are the fastest growing Protestant churches
in America and in 2006, as it is now, they are the second largest
Protestant group just behind the Southern Baptist Convention....

... These congregations should be seen as a separate and distinctive
religious reality. If we begin to think of them as not just individual
aberrant outliers or lone isolated congregations but rather as a unique
religious phenomenon – as a distinctive religious market segment – then
we can begin to address the question of why they have become so popular
in the past few decades. As a group, they are a significant reality –
one that demands consideration, study and reflection on why they are so
prevalent currently. ...

... Megachurches often get associated with the nondenominational movement
but in fact only about 35% of the Protestant churches over 2000
attenders are nondenominational. Nevertheless, roughly half of the
nation’s largest and fastest growing Protestant churches, as determined
by the most recent Outreach Magazine listing were nondenominational. ...

Jan 05, 2013

"... Although the number of evangelical churches in the United States
declined for many years, the trend reversed in 2006, with more new
churches opening each year since, according to the Leadership Network’s
most recent surveys. This wave of “church planting” has been highest
among nondenominational pastors, free to experiment outside traditional
hierarchies.

“I hear a lot of pastors say, ‘I’m not just trying to be creative and
avant-garde, I think this is maybe the last chance for me,’ ” said Doug Pagitt, the founder of Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis.

Mr. Pagitt has written several books on church innovations, many of which were first developed in the “emergent” church movement of the last decade or among “missional” churches whose practices focus on life outside the church.

Many of their innovations are being adopted by an increasing number of pastors in the mainstream.

... But in March, unbeknown to Ms. Pu, a critical meeting had occurred between Foxconn’s top executives and a high-ranking Apple official. The companies had committed themselves to a series of wide-ranging reforms. Foxconn, China’s largest private employer, pledged to sharply curtail workers’ hours and significantly increase wages — reforms that, if fully carried out next year as planned, could create a ripple effect that benefits tens of millions of workers across the electronics industry, employment experts say.

Other reforms were more personal. Protective foam sprouted on low stairwell ceilings inside factories. Automatic shut-off devices appeared on whirring machines. Ms. Pu got her chair. This autumn, she even heard that some workers had received cushioned seats.

The changes also extend to California, where Apple is based. Apple, the electronics industry’s behemoth, in the last year has tripled its corporate social responsibility staff, has re-evaluated how it works with manufacturers, has asked competitors to help curb excessive overtime in China and has reached out to advocacy groups it once rebuffed.

Executives at companies like Hewlett-Packard and Intel say those shifts have convinced many electronics companies that they must also overhaul how they interact with foreign plants and workers — often at a cost to their bottom lines, though, analysts say, probably not so much as to affect consumer prices. As Apple and Foxconn became fodder for “Saturday Night Live” and questions during presidential debates, device designers and manufacturers concluded the industry’s reputation was at risk. ...

"...Launched in July, the Seattle-based Egraphs' business model is simple, but pretty clever. Fans can peruse the company website to see if their favorite athlete has partnered up with Egraphs. Each player's section has a number of professionally shot action photographs included, typically priced between $25 and $50. The fan pays and sends the athlete a message through the website, including some personal details or memories.

The athlete then receives that message on his custom iPad app, using the the information provided to write a personalized note and electronic autograph on the selected photo. The photo is then sent electronically to the fan, who can save it digitally, share it on social media or order a physical print. Revenue is split between company and athlete. ..."

8. This month is the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling, legalizing abortion across the country. Time magazine has a feature article about the Pro-Choice movement this week that suggests 1973 may have been the high-water mark for the movement. Unfortunately, the article is behind a pay wall. Here is a short clip summarizing their take.

"...Academic Publishers will tell you that creating modern textbooks is an expensive, labor-intensive process that demands charging high prices. But as Kevin Carey noted in a recent Slate piece, the industry also shares some of the dysfunctions that help drive up the cost of healthcare spending. Just as doctors prescribe prescription drugs they'll never have to pay for, college professors often assign titles with little consideration of cost. Students, like patients worried about their health, don't have much choice to pay up, lest they risk their grades. Meanwhile, Carey illustrates how publishers have done just about everything within their power to prop up their profits, from bundling textbooks with software that forces students to buy new editions instead of cheaper used copies, to suing a low-cost textbook start-ups over flimsy copyright claims. ..."

...One of the things I’ve noticed over the years is that some of the
most prominent Christian figures in politics radiate a sense that their
work is essential if the Lord is to accomplish His goals on earth.
Because they believe so much depends on them, they develop an
aggressive, anxious, even desperate spirit. They seem to believe that
only they and a few others are strong enough to resist compromising with
evil. And over the years they have demonstrated a barely contained
disdain toward those who do not share their zeal for their cause. This
can create its own set of problems.

I’m reminded here of the cautionary tale of Sheldon Vanauken, who in A Severe Mercy
wrote about his days in the anti-Vietnam war movement. “I was one of
those caught up in the mood and action oft the 1960s,” Vanauken wrote:

Christ,
I thought, would surely have me oppose what appeared an unjust war. But
the Movement, whatever its ideals, did a good deal of hating. And
Christ, gradually, was pushed to the rear: Movement goals, not God,
became first, in fact — not only for me but for other Christians
involved, including priests. I now think that making God secondary
(which in the end is to make Him nothing) is, quite simply, the mortal
danger in social action, especially in view of the marked intimations of
virtue — even arrogant virtue — that often perilously accompany it.
Some may avoid this danger, perhaps. But I was not obeying the first and
greatest commandment — to love God first — nor it is clear that I was
obeying the second — to love my neighbour. Hating the oppressors of my
neighbor isn’t perhaps quite what Christ had in mind.

Over
the years, some politically active Christian leaders seem to believe
that at stake in their work is nothing less than the influence of
Christianity in America, as if Christ depends on them instead of the
other way around. There are multiple effects to such a mindset,
including apocalyptic rhetoric and absolutism. At some point, though,
characterizing every election and every important piece of social
legislation as a moral tipping point for America begins to wear thin.

My
own sense of things is that an increasing number of evangelicals,
particularly younger evangelicals, want their brand of politics to be
less partisan and bitter than in the past, as well as more high-minded
and more firmly rooted in principles. They want their leaders to display
a lighter touch, a less distraught and angry spirit, a more gracious
tone. In short, they seem to be looking for a politics that is both
moral and civil. And they are thirsting for more serious Christian
reflection on human society and the human person — on first principles. ...

Liberal bishops dismissed Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict
XVI's apostolic constitution authorizing wider use of the traditional
Latin mass, as a bone thrown to over-the-hill conservatives. But Pope
Benedict XVI probably wrote it more for the young than the old. ...

... The secular press covers youth interest in the traditional Latin mass far more respectfully. TheEconomist
recently reported on the "traditionalist avant-garde." The old mass, it
found, isn't petering out but picking up some speed: "The Latin Mass
Society of England and Wales, started in 1965, now has over 5,000
members. The weekly number of Latin masses is up from 26 in 2007 to 157
now. In America it is up from 60 in 1991 to 420. At Brompton Oratory, a
hotspot of London traditionalism, 440 flock to the main Sunday Latin
mass. That is twice the figure for the main English one."

The influx of conservative Anglicans has bolstered these numbers a
bit: "Dozens of Anglican priests have 'crossed the Tiber' from the
heavily ritualistic 'smells and bells' high-church wing; they find a
ready welcome among traditionalist Roman Catholics."

But the principal source of growth comes from youth interest. "Like
evangelical Christianity, traditional Catholicism is attracting people
who were not even born when the Second Vatican Council tried to
rejuvenate the church," says The Economist. "Traditionalist groups have members in 34 countries, including Hong Kong, South Africa
and Belarus. Juventutem, a movement for young Catholics who like the
old ways, boasts scores of activists in a dozen countries."

Self-consciously "relevant" Catholicism is increasingly seen by the
young as irrelevant. Youth masses that try to imitate the trends of the
world, often lamely, generate only sporadic attendance. ...

"... The first kind of Christianity avoids reactionary authoritarianism
but is often a therapeutic or vanilla mush that fails to ask anything of
anybody out of fear of giving offense. The second kind of Christianity
offers stern, clear moral directives that attract people seeking the
“specific instruction, even confrontation that calls us to grow in
discipleship” (p. 6), but disastrously embraces right-wing ideology and
baptizes that as the content of Christianity.

Both of these versions of Christianity are so deeply flawed, says
Stassen, that both are contributing to the alarming spread of secularism
in the U.S. The first version of Christianity is so thin as to lack any
particular reason why one would want to get out of bed on Sunday and go
to church; the second is so reactionary as to drive thoughtful people
into an anti-religious posture if they conclude that religion equals
right-wing authoritarianism.

I believe this is a stark but actually quite accurate depiction of
the primary problems afflicting the Protestantisms of the left and of
the right in the current U.S. setting. ..."

"While not exclusive to Latin America, the culture of family, support,
and living a life to spend time with your family, I think, is an
important part of Latin American culture that keeps people positive.
Being with those close to you and finding other friends and partners
that value that way of life is a key part of Latin American culture.
That might be the main reason why people remain positive: they are never
truly alone. Interestingly, many discussions and documentaries about
immigrant groups in the United States
show an internal conflict among many who move to the US and who do not
wish to lose their support systems in a new culture rooted in
individualism. While being motivated and entrepreneurial is valued, a
life being with your family, where you are never truly alone, is the
basis for many cultures in many parts of the world. Many new Americans
frown on the thought that children can detach themselves from their
family at 18 years of age. They believe people can only truly thrive as a
family."

"A Pew Internet Research Center survey released Thursday found that the
percentage of Americans aged 16 and older who read an e-book grew from
16 percent in 2011 to 23 percent this year. Readers of traditional books
dropped from 72 percent to 67 percent. Overall, those reading books of
any kind dropped from 78 percent to 75 percent, a shift Pew called
statistically insignificant."

Puerto Rico, Vermont, and Rhode Island are the only states (and territory) that saw a net decrease in population over the year.

The fastest growing region was the South (1.06% population growth) followed by the West (1.03% population growth).

North Dakota and the District of Columbia had the highest population growth, with 2.5% and 2.3% population growth, respectively. Texas, Wyoming, and Utah also saw major growth.

West Virginia and Maine are the only two states where people are dying faster than they are being born, with 0.93 and 0.99 births for each death.

Utah (3.44) and Alaska (3.33) had the highest birth to death ratio in 2012. That means 3.44 babies were born for each death in Utah.

Domestic migration determines the rate that people leave and enter states to and from other states. Per capita, more natives left New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island to move somewhere else than any other states.

On the other hand, people flocked to North Dakota, D.C., Wyoming and South Carolina.

The states that had the highest rates of international migration — that is, the rate of immigrants coming in — were Hawaii, New Jersey, Florida, New York and D.C.

Puerto Rico is seeing a massive exodus — 1% of their population left last year.

"In other words, Americans are increasingly likely to have to purchase
and replace these goods some time soon as they get more and more worn
out. That's bullish for spending, jobs, and the economy as a whole."

"... Yet a few differences between the sexes do seem to hold up to scrutiny. One is spatial abilities. If men look at an object, for example, they are slightly faster at guessing what it would look like if it were rotated 180 degrees. There are plenty of women who do better than individual men. But overall there’s a stasticially significant difference in their average performance. This kind of difference carries over from one culture to another. It’s even detectable in babies. ...

... Whenever we reflect on human evolution, it pays to compare our species to other animals. And in the case of spatial abilities, the comparison is fascinating. Almost a century ago, the psychologist Helen Hubbet found that male rats could get through a maze faster than females. The difference can also be found in a number of other species. ...

... Clint and his colleagues propose a different explanation: male spatial ability is not an adaptation so much as a side effect. Males produce testosterone as they develop, and the hormone has a clear benefit in terms of reproduction, increasing male fertility. But testosterone also happens to produce a lot of side effects, including male pattern baldness and an increased chance of developing acne. It would be absurd to say acne was an adaptation favored by natural selection. The same goes for the male edge in spatial ability, Clint and his colleagues argue. They note that when male rats are castrated, they do worse at navigating a maze; when they are given shots of testosterone, they regain their skill. ..."

"... Despite
its reputation as a leftwing utopia, Sweden is now a laboratory for
rightwing radicalism. Over the past 15 years a coalition of liberals and
conservatives has brought in for-profit free schools in education, has
sliced welfare to pay off the deficit and has privatised large parts of
the health service.

Their success is envied by the centre right
in Britain. Despite predictions of doom, Sweden's economy continues to
grow and its pro-business coalition has remained in power since 2006.
The last election was the first time since the war that a centre-right
government had been re-elected after serving a full term.

As the
state has been shrunk, the private sector has moved in. Göran Dahlgren, a
former head civil servant at the Swedish department of health and a
visiting professor at the University of Liverpool, says that "almost all
welfare services are now owned by private equity firms". ..."

"... We
have reached a point in our economy where it is becoming increasingly
clear that businesses are being measured not just for their profit, but
also for their impact. And I’m not just talking about writing a check or
funding a charity; I’m referring to business models for which community
involvement and inspirational brand building are the profit centers.
(Think Warby Parker, TOMS, and startups such as SOMA.) I recently went
to a conference where the founders of a startup posited a powerful idea:
the future of marketing is philanthropy. But I think the even bigger
idea is the future of business is morality. My grandfather saw this
early on.

At a time when the moral framework of America appears
to be fractured – or at the very least confused – businesses are in the
propitious position to espouse cultural standards that can help restore
values that our youth can use to build the next generation of positive
enterprise. In fact, whether businesses succeed in creating and
promoting positive cultures might determine whether they stay in
business at all. The future of business is morality, and the future is
now.

Whether it’s the job of the corporation or not to set the
moral tone for society, the expectation is trending towards companies
setting the right example for others to follow. With the sharp rise in
entrepreneurship, young companies have the opportunity to establish
strong cultures early on and share them with their communities. Money
must have a moral center, and from greater consciousness in business,
greater profit will follow. ..."

"New data show an increasing contribution of mental and behavioral disorders to deterioration in the health-related quality of life among teens in the U.S. and Canada over the past two decades, and increases elsewhere around the globe."

More people moved out of California in 2011 than moved in, according to the latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau, signaling that the Democrat-run state’s economic woes continue to drive residents away.

Most statisticians attribute California’s net loss of 100,000 people last year to its high cost of living, increased population density and troubling unemployment rate.

The widening middle class in Mexico is also encouraging some immigrants to remain in that country instead of moving to California.

Texas — home to lower taxes, less regulation and what the Manhattan Institute calls a “labor pool with the right skills at the right price” — is one of the most attractive destinations for companies departing from California, according to the Census Bureau. ...

"The country reported 85 executions in 2000 but only 43 in 2012, according to a new report released by the Death Penalty Information Center. Plus, far fewer people are being sentenced to death row in the first place. The year 2000 saw 224 new inmates sentenced to death, while 2012 saw only 78, according to the report."

15. Conor Friedersdorf at the Atlantic had a great piece Why 'If We Can Just Save One Child ...' Is a Bad Argument, referring to a statement President Obama made at Newtown, CT. When we deal with complex topics like gun control, we are always
talking about tradeoffs. For instance, I know how we can save more
than 30,000 lives. The were 32,367 traffic fatalities last
year. Let's set the speed limit to 5 miles per hour. Nearly all those lives would be saved. Should we do this "if we can save just
one more life"? I, like Friedersforf, am not advocating any particular
policy. I'm just pointing out the absurdity of making statements like this, as politicians often do.

"I found that the structural supports of evangelicalism are quivering as a
result of ground-shaking changes in American culture. Strategies that
served evangelicals well just 15 years ago are now self- destructive.
The more that evangelicals attempt to correct course, the more they
splinter their movement. In coming years we will see the old
evangelicalism whimper and wane."

He speaks of an Evangelical "collapse" having happened. That may be a bit premature but I think his articulation of trends is right.

Dec 19, 2012

A global study of religious adherence released on Tuesday by the Pew Research Center
found that about one of every six people worldwide has no religious
affiliation. This makes the “unaffiliated,” as the study calls them, the
third-largest group worldwide, with 16 percent of the global population
— about equal to Catholics. ...

Nov 19, 2012

One of my favorite blogs is Adam Smith's Lost Legacy, written by economic historian Gavin Kennedy. He frequently finds mentions of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" from around the web and then goes to work debunking the abuse of Smith's views. The metaphor, mentioned only twice in passing in The Wealth of Nations, was appropriated by economists over the last half century in support of modern notions of free markets. He wrote an intriguing article on this topic Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand: From Metaphor to Myth.

But Kennedy also helps interpret other aspects of Smith's work. Some economists apply economic principles to the formation of religious organizations and Smith is indentified as having supported a competitive religious marketplace over state run monopolies, as a way to promote religion. Kennedy writes the following in Adam Smith's Authentic Views On Church and State.

... Laurence Iannaccone’s selective
inference, upon which Tim Harford draws, that amount to saying that Smith’s
asserted that “more competitive religious marketplaces lead to
more dynamic churches”, deserves closer examination.

The key emphasis of Smith’s suggestion that a
multiplicity of local religious sects which “allowed everyman to chuse his own
priest and his own religion as he thought proper” was aimed at breaking to
relationship between authorised established state religious churches and the
state. ...

Kennedy gives a lengthy quote by Smith and then writes:

... I think these long quotations encapsulate what Smith
was about in arguing for a multiplicity of sects, namely that the very
competition of each would act as a balm on the otherwise violent, or at least
the disturbing clamour of their zealots at the expense of public
tranquility. It was not aimed at
causing larger congregations so much, perhaps, as allowing room for the tolerance of a
third-sect of potentially non-religious citizenry, living amidst a large number of
religious sects at peace with each other. ...

Nov 08, 2012

Stephen Novella has written an interesting piece about confirmation bias as it relates to politics, Moderating Political Opinions. What he has to say applies to many other areas of life including conversations about theology and our faith experiences. Novella begins his discussion recounting findings from recent experiments conducted by psychologists. He summarizes their findings here:

... The researchers interpret all of this as the action of confirmation bias
– a core cognitive bias that motivates people to seek out and notice
information that confirms existing beliefs and either ignore or dismiss
evidence against their existing beliefs or in favor of a competing
belief. Confirmation bias is the default mode of human thinking – the
cognitive pathway of least resistance that we will tend to follow. If
you force people to slow down and think harder, even in a manner
tangential to the question at hand, confirmation bias is moderated by
deeper evaluation. However – deeper evaluation takes cognitive energy,
and if you deprive subjects of this energy by giving them another task
to perform, then the default mode of confirmation bias takes hold. ...

How do we overcome confirmation bias?

... Imagine if students were systematically educated to engage abstract
thinking and to ward off the effects of confirmation bias (and other
biases) when considering important issues (or all issues, for that
matter). This, in essence, is scientific skepticism. Skeptics are those
who do not simply flow down the path of least resistance, giving in to
the lowest energy state of thought, surrendering to cognitive entropy.
Skepticism is about understanding the nature of cognitive biases and
then doing the hard mental work of thinking complexly and abstractly
about important questions.

The trigger for skeptical evaluation needs to be internal. In this
way being a skeptic is partly just a habit of thought. The skeptic stops
and asks, “wait a minute, is this really true?” When confronting an
opposing opinion or interpretation of the evidence, the skeptic tries to
understand the various points of view and will at least try to fairly
assess each point, recognizing that many topics are complex, with good
and bad points on all sides.

Being a skeptic is also about applying the findings of decades of
psychological research to our everyday lives. It is a shame that
psychologists have conducted thousands of experiments carefully
describing the many ways in which human thinking is biased, and yet
public awareness of this useful body of knowledge is limited. ...

It is impossible to escape confirmation bias. Fortunately, most of the time, our
imprecise understanding is close enough. And in many cases, even where our
understanding is way off, the consequences aren’t that significant. Yet in some
cases, confirmation bias can be deadly.

Hurricane Katrina killed nearly 2,000 people. Many people believe minorities and the poor were disproportionately
represented among the fatalities. But Amanda Ripley points out
in The Unthinkable that this was not true. The disproportionately affected demographic was the elderly. Why? Because many of them had weathered hurricanes
in the past. They “knew” they could weather this one as well. They discounted
information that suggested otherwise. By the time they learned they were wrong it was too late.

We can't avoid confirmation bias altogether. Our brains are wired to find patterns in our experiences that will inform us in future decisions. We often see patterns that aren't there, or at least as strongly there as we imagine. We simply don't have the capacity to pause and scrupulously analyze every issue or decision that presents itself. But we do need to be especially
diligent about confirmation bias when something significant is at stake. This
could be a financial decision, a job decision, or a decision that deeply affects
relationships. Politics and religion are two topics that frequently have such an impact. This is especially true when there is conflict. I suggest we need to do at least the following:

Strive to be conscious of our own logic and emotions driving
us toward a particular conclusion.

Make time to truly focus on the issues at hand and resist being emotionally hijacked during deliberation.

Restrain our impulse to declare someone ignorant or
malicious because they hold a different position. Assume positive intent until
there is strong evidence to the contrary.

Enter each discussion with a personal committment to having a positive experience.

Ask questions. Read and listen to alternative views. Seek to know other positions well enough that when we explain a position to a
person who holds that position that they will affirm our description.

Be in community with others who don’t share some of our
most cherished views. It helps us to hear others more fully. This type of community will
continually remind us that there are decent reasonable people who do not see the world the way we do.

As the hymn says, in all we do, "Guard each person's dignity and save each person's pride." (And sometimes that means when they are not returning the favor.)

Undergird this all with prayer for insight. Pray that God will bring clarity to
everyone involved.

I have a follow-up post on this topic tomorrow but for now I have a few questions. When have you discovered confirmation bias in your own thinking? Do
you agree with the list of practices above? What would you add?

... The most dramatic shifts, however, appear around personal politics.
Political affiliation—a one measure, 1-5 scale of just how politically
conservative or liberal our respondents consider themselves—takes the
cake for shifting the bar on perceived growth or decline in organized
religious involvement. Only 23 percent of respondents who said they were
“very conservative” politically reported being less active in organized
religion today, while 31 percent said they were more active than as a youth. Keep in mind that’s compared with 53 and 13 percent of the total population, respectively.

It’s
a linear association, too: 48 percent of just plain “conservative”
respondents reported being less active religiously, compared with 52
percent of moderates, 62 percent of those who said they were “liberal”
and 76 percent of those who self-identified as “very liberal.” That’s
quite a span–from 23 percent (among the most conservative) to 76 percent
(among the most liberal).

The Democrats truly are losing their
religion. Or perhaps these are persons who lost their religion and then
decided the Democratic Party seemed most in line with their sentiments.
There is probably plenty of both types. ...

5. The New Republic has a very lengthy article The Mormon Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. It offers some interesting insights in to Mormonism's road from communalism to economic individualism, a trajectory followed by many Protestant sectarian movements. Jackson Lears writes:

"Mormons embraced economic individualism and hierarchical communalism;
they distrusted government interventions in business life but not in
moral life; they used their personal morality to underwrite their
monetary success. They celebrated endless progress through Promethean
striving. They paid little attention to introspection and much to
correct behavior. And their fundamental scripture confirmed that America
was God’s New Israel and the Mormons His Chosen People. It would be
hard to find an outlook more suited to the political culture of the
post–Reagan Republican Party."

"A number of students asked foreign policy questions, and then a young woman asked me about the responses I have received to my Atlantic cover story from this past summer, "Why Women Still Can't Have It All."
I answered, and several other young women followed up. After ten
minutes or so, I saw that the roughly 50 percent guys in the room had
gone completely silent. When I commented on the suddenly one-sided
nature of the conversation, one young man volunteered that he "had been
raised in a strong feminist household" and considered himself to be
fully supportive of male-female equality, but he was reluctant to say
anything for fear he would be misunderstood. A number of the other guys
around the table nodded in agreement."

8. People who know me personally know I tend to use sarcasm and double entendre in spoken communication. One of my biggest blogging challenges is editing most of this out of posts. Emoticons can help but some of the biggest misunderstandings I have had came from people not being able to see my wink or big grin as I write certain things. For that reason, I found this interesting: The Strange Science Of Translating Sarcasm Online

"In their new book "Religion and AIDS in Africa" (Oxford University Press), sociologists Jenny Trinitapoli and Alexander Weinreb seek to challenge the widespread view that religious beliefs and communities have unwittingly assisted in the spread of the disease through their resistance to preventative sex education. They also show that not only have religious groups had a largely positive role in AIDS prevention, but also how the epidemic has shaped religious beliefs in unexpected ways."

Oct 30, 2012

In a profound chapter in A Matrix of Meanings: Finding God in Pop Culture,
Craig Detweiler and Barry Taylor look at how advertising has shaped
contemporary society. The authors offer “Ten Commandments of
Advertising,” all of which point to an overarching question that people
in this (and every) culture ask: “What is it to be fully human?”

“This is the question that advertising seeks to answer, a
question that was one the pursuit of philosophers and theologians.
Advertising is an incredibly powerful form of pop culture that
influences us on levels far deeper than getting us to choose certain
products. Life choices are part of today’s world of advertising and
consumption. ‘The glory of God,’ Irenaeus wrote, ‘is a human being fully
alive.’ In contemporary society, to be fully human is to shop.
Advertising offers us ways to be alive, ways to be human.” (p. 84)

Certainly, there are ads that are manipulative and appeal to the
baser aspects of human depravity in order to sell products. But
advertising, at its best, appeals to our desire to know who we are, to
celebrate life, to find meaning in being human. ...

I especially liked this statement:

Christianity needs to “re-message” itself as a faith that embraces the
joy of God restoring humanity and encourages celebration. The
restoration of all things is in our future. We await the return of Jesus
Christ with great anticipation. What are we doing in preparation?

The primary vision of the church today, liberal or conservative, is to offer people meaning and transcendence by extracting them out of the daily routines of life, rather than equipping people to see transcendence in those daily routines. We do it in the form of therapeutic pietism or in the form of activism to change the world. And if you are really "spiritual" you will enter "full-time ministry" to do these things.

(Bob wrote a great post here. He recently began (re)integrate, which is devoted to addressing just the kind of issues the post raises. Be sure to check the website.)

Where have you seen examples of the church equipping people to see transcendence in the routines of life? How might we do a better job of celebrating life?

Oct 25, 2012

NEW YORK (AP) -- Scientists in Oregon
have created embryos with genes from one man and two women, using a
provocative technique that could someday be used to prevent babies from
inheriting certain rare incurable diseases.

The researchers at Oregon Health &
Sciences University said they are not using the embryos to produce
children, and it is not clear when or even if this technique will be put
to use. But it has already stirred a debate over its risks and ethics
in Britain, where scientists did similar work a few years ago.

The British
experiments, reported in 2008, led to headlines about the possibility
someday of babies with three parents. But that's an overstatement. The
DNA from the second woman amounts to less than 1 percent of the embryo's
genes, and it isn't the sort that makes a child look like Mom or Dad.
The procedure is simply a way of replacing some defective genes that
sabotage the normal workings of cells.

The
British government is asking for public comment on the technology before
it decides whether to allow its use in the future. One concern it cites
is whether such DNA alteration could be an early step down a slippery
slope toward "designer babies" - ordering up, say, a petite, blue-eyed
girl or tall, dark-haired boy. ...

Oct 19, 2012

Over at Gray, White, and Black, Jerry Park has posted an interesting piece based on Pew Research called Racial Religious Patterns in Political Ideology – Expanded Version. There are several interesting points in the post. Be sure to read it. But there is one chart in particular I wanted to lift up and I want to get your feedback on an interesting question. This is a chart showing the political party identification of non-Catholic Christians:

Being a PCUSA guy, you can guess where my eyes went first. The White Mainline group is the second most balanced group after the Asian American Mainline group (and it often surprises many people that Mainliners do tilt toward Republican.) But let's disaggregate the White Mainline group a little. Here is data taken from the 2011, Presbyterian Panel. of the Presbyterian Church, USA. The Panel is an going survey done by the denomination. Here is a breakdown of political identification within the denomination:

For members and ruling elder who identify with a party, the ratio is 3:2, Republicans over Democrats. The ratio for pastors is a 5:2 in favor of Democrats. The ratio is more than 5:1 for Democrats among specialized clergy. Part of what this says to me is that there are many pastors who find themselves with a substantial disconnect between themselves and their congregations, and vice versa.

I just completed eight years of service on the board of PCUSA's Presbyterian Mission Agency, which oversees the domestic and international work of the denomination between General Assemblies. I have had close involvement with staff and the countless boards and organizations that make up the denomination. (A rewarding experience, I might add.) I can affirm for you that the people who are in the PCUSA hierarchy are overwhelmingly in a continuum from moderate Democrats to flaming liberals. ;-)

As we look at the groups in the first chart, my perception is that the White Mainline group is unique in this dischotomy between members and leaders. There may be some differences between members and leaders in other groups but I wonder if there are any where the ratios are flipped.

So here is my question: Do you perceive that this difference between members and leaders is unique to White Mainline denominations? If so, why do you suppose the difference exists? (And just a caution. As we are dealing with politics AND religion, everyone play nice. ;-) )

Oct 17, 2012

Dalrymple highlights the popular perception that the mixing
of politics and religion is something unique to the Republican Party. He makes
the case that Obama has actually been quite willing to mix the two over the
course of his presidency, and actually it is Romney who is more reticent to bring up religion, due
largely to the challenge his Mormon faith presents. Read the first several
paragraphs for yourself and see what you think but I thought his analysis of
how we got to where we are was especially good.

So where do people get this notion that the Right has claimed ownership over
Christianity? It’s best understood historically. And while there are
certainly points in this story on which to criticize the Right, the story has
just as much to do with poor decisions on the Left. If it came to seem as
though the Right owned the Christian camp in the ongoing political warfare
between the parties, it was largely because the Left completely abandoned the
religious field.

Jeffrey’s Bell’s The Case for a Polarized Politics tells
the story in far greater detail than I can hope to do here. But in the
late 1960s and 1970s, the Democratic party came to represent the rejection — in
fact, it was quite explicit — of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Democratic National Conventions were awash in anti-Christian sentiment,
as that tradition came to represent all that was oppressive and backwards, the
decrepit authority of a prior generation that was best case aside in the mark
toward the new utopia. Religion was essentially privatized. Believe
whatever (nonsense) you want in the privacy of your own home, but religious
convictions, passions and persuasion do not belong in the public, political
sphere.

Also, since this was (not coincidentally) the same group that was
promoting the sexual revolution and its transformation of personal mores,
cultural forms and social policy, the Religious Right arose and, increasingly
in the late 1970s made common cause with the GOP. On one issue after
another — prayer in schools, artifacts and invocations of faith in the
political sphere, the enforced teaching of evolution and sex education,
abortion, pornography, marriage and eventually gay rights — the Left lined up
on the side opposite the Christian consensus. Evangelicals briefly
believed they might have a Democrat they could support in the born-again Jimmy
Carter, but they quickly grew disenchanted with Carter and fully cast their lot
with the GOP in 1980.

However, what was initially a temporary alliance forged to address specific
issues that concerned Christians as Christians, became a more complex and
thoroughgoing union. …

He goes on to point out that a pragmatic alliance with Republicans morphed
into a thorough fusion. This alienated many people and robbed the church
of its prophetic voice. But he writes:

As a historical matter, the extreme alignment of Christians and the Right
might never have happened if the Left had not abandoned the field. As it
was, the Right was the only side making a religious pitch. Both sides
should have been making a religious pitch. The Left has been
reemphasizing the use of values and religious language, and when it’s not
artificial and manipulative I actually appreciate that. We need
Christians arguing both sides.

And then he writes this, which I could easily have written myself:

While I tend to vote conservative, it’s my responsibility as a Christian to
examine each issue on its own merits according to my principles and my beliefs.
I feel no loyalty to the Republican Party. In fact, I fear
that feeling of loyalty because I fear it would cloud my judgment. My
loyalty is to something much greater, and that greater loyalty will sometimes
call me to criticize the Republican Party. I need to be able to deliver
that criticism.

Then he concludes:

What we require is not less religion in politics, but better religion in
politics. We require a religion in politics that is not reflexively
partisan (and now that problem is just as acute amongst progressive Christians
on the Left as it ever was amongst conservative Christians on the Right).
We require more thoughtful ways of bringing the fullness of who we are,
religious vision included, into the political arena. We require the kind
of faith in politics that will hold us accountable to be humble and honest and
searching and serving, that will hold the state accountable to use the power of
the sword and the power of the public purse wisely and justly, and that will
hold the church accountable to speak with a greater regard for the truth than
for political power.

“Reflexive partisanship.” To me, that is the virus that has diminished the
church’s voice in culture. It is epidemic. And it continues to spread through the body ... right, left, and in between.

Oct 09, 2012

As Protestants decline, people with no religion, "Nones", are rising in
number. Protestants are less than half of Americans, while Nones are one
in five.

For decades, if not centuries, America's top religious brand has been "Protestant." No more.

In
the 1960s, two in three Americans called themselves Protestant. Now the
Protestant group -- both evangelical and mainline -- has slid below the
statistical waters, down to 48%, from 53% in 2007

Where did they
go? Nowhere, actually. They didn't switch to a new religious brand, they
just let go of any faith affiliation or label.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released an analytic study today titled, Nones on the Rise, now that one in five Americans (19.6%) claim no religious identity.

This
group, called "Nones," is now the nation's second-largest category only
to Catholics, and outnumbers the top Protestant denomination, the
Southern Baptists. The shift is a significant cultural, religious and
even political change. ...

Sep 25, 2012

Strolling down the main shopping drag in this working-class Rio de
Janeiro suburb, it's not the second-skin dresses in shocking pink
spandex that catch the eye or even the strapless tops with strategically
placed peekaboo paneling.

The newest look can instead be found in stores like Silca Evangelical
Fashion, where the hot items are the demure, long-sleeved frocks with
how-low-can-you-go hemlines and the polyester putty-colored potato sack
dresses.

In the birthplace of the "fio dental" or dental floss string bikini,
so-called evangelical fashion has emerged as a growing segment of the
country's $52 billion-a-year textile industry, catering to the
conservative sartorial needs of Brazil's burgeoning numbers of
born-again Pentecostals.

Once so difficult to procure that evangelical women tended to make much
of their own clothes themselves, the modest garb is now popping up all
over Brazil.

On the tiny high street of Rio suburb Itaborai, not one but two
evangelical clothing stores compete to dress the faithful. M&A
Fashion got its start two decades ago as a conventional clothing shop,
selling the short, tight styles favored in this tropical country, but
shifted to evangelical offerings five years ago. Silca Evangelical
Clothing, two doors down, opened in March. ...

Aug 23, 2012

The number of congregations that host worship services at more than
one physical location has grown to more than 5,000 in the last decade,
according to a new report.

Researchers say these “multisite” churches, which may share
worshippers across town or many miles apart, are growing at a much
larger pace than traditional megachurches.

Without the burden of additional expensive buildings, congregations
find they grow faster in new places, said Warren Bird, research director
of Leadership Network, who announced his conclusions Tuesday (Aug. 21).

“It’s a combination of both evangelism and saying, ‘People may not come
to this particular building. How can we take where we are to where they
are?’” he told Religion News Service. ...

... Multisite churches have grown from fewer than 200 in 2001 to 1,500 in
2006 to an estimated 3,000 in 2009 to more than 5,000 today. In
comparison, U.S. megachurches have grown from about 50 in 1970 to about
1,650 in 2012 in North America. ...

Jun 27, 2012

Americans say they are more tolerant and open-minded than their parents. Among the issues that rate more morally acceptable today than a decade ago: homosexuality, human cloning, pre-marital sex, and having a child out of wedlock. At the same time, half believe the economic system is unfair to middle- and working-class Americans, and only 17 percent believe Wall Street executives share fundamental American values. In all, two-thirds think the country is heading in the wrong direction, 69 percent believe the country's values have deteriorated since the 1970s, and nearly half say values will further weaken over the next 10 years.

Such are the highlights of The Atlantic/Aspen Institute American Values Survey. Elsewhere on the site, pollster Mark Penn provides a full analysis of the survey, which was conducted by his firm, Penn Schoen Berland. Below, a brief summary in charts: ...

Apr 12, 2012

WASHINGTON — Americans feel the “Christian faith” has a positive impact on help for the poor and raising children with good morals, according to a new poll, but it gets a bad rap on its impact on sexuality in society.

In a new study conducted by Grey Matter Research, more than 1,000 American adults were asked if the Christian faith had a positive, negative, or no real impact on 16 different areas of society, such as crime, poverty and the role of women in society.

Strong majorities (72 percent) said Christianity is good for helping the poor and for raising children with good morals. Around half (52 percent) said Christianity helps keep the U.S. as a “strong nation,” and nearly as many (49 percent) said the faith had a positive impact on the role of women in society. ...

... Sellers said he wasn’t surprised that Americans hold their most negative perception for how Christianity impacts sexuality: 37 percent felt there was a negative impact, compared to only 26 percent who felt it was positive.

In six of the 16 areas, sizable numbers of Americans said Christianity had little or no impact, including the environment, business ethics, civility and substance abuse. Americans were roughly split, at about one-third each, on Christianity’s impact on racism. ... (my emphasis)

Apr 09, 2012

... Given that some of these countries have performed about as well or better than the U.S. in recent years, one might conclude that the historic link between religious faith and material progress — so central to the work of Max Weber – has been irretrievably broken. Yet in reality, the religious connection with economic growth may be still far more important than is commonly supposed.

Many in the pundit class identify religion as something of a regressive tendency, embraced by the less enlightened, the less skilled, intelligent and educated. Yet some scholars, such as Charles Murray, point out that religious affiliation is weakening most not among the middle and upper classes but among the poorer and less educated who traditionally looked to churches for succor and moral instruction. Secularism may have not hurt the uber-rich or the academic overclass so far, but it appears to have helped expand our lumpenproleteriat.

Some might be surprised to learn that religious affiliation grows with education levels. A new University of Nebraska study finds that with each additional year of education, the odds of attending religious services increased by 15%. The educated, the study found, may not be eschewing religion, as social science has long maintained, even if their spiritual views tend to be less narrow, and less overtly tied to politics, than among the less schooled.

Overall the most cohesive religious groups — such as Mormons and Jews — still outperform their religious counterparts both in educational achievement and income. Both Jews and Mormons focus on helping their co-religionists, providing a leg up on those who depend solely on the charity of others or the state. In countries with a substantial historical Protestant influence such as Germany, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands continue to outperform economic the heavily Catholic nations like Italy, Ireland and Spain, according to a recent European study. The difference, they speculate, may be in Protestant traditions of self-help, frugality and emphasis on education. None of this, of course, would have been surprising to Max Weber. ...

... There may be other positive fiscal effects of religiosity. Religious people donate on average far more to charities than their secular counterparts, including those unaffiliated with a religion. Nearly 15% of the religious volunteer every week compared to just 10% among the secular.

Social networks, much celebrated among the single, might provide people with voices, but religious organizations actually do something about meeting real human needs. Organized religion provides a counterweight to the European notion that we must rely on government for everything. Poor people educated or fed by the charities of mosques, churches, and synagogues relieves some of the burden faced by our variously tottering states and shredding social welfare nets. Aging baby boomers, notes author Ted Fishman, may be forced to rely more on the “kindness of strangers” from religious backgrounds to take care of them in their old age.

Sadly few prominent religious leaders deliver this message effectively, often preferring to scold non-believers. This is unfortunate since what the faithful do in the real world, at home and in their communities, may prove ever more crucial to the viability of our societies in the future. ...

Mar 28, 2012

... But not far below the surface, change is afoot in the ranks of a once-reliable GOP voting bloc and around that term, "evangelical." As has been widely reported, more evangelicals are breaking formation and tackling social problems such as poverty and human trafficking that weren't on the evangelical political agenda a decade or two ago. Even more seismic, though, is a challenge being mounted against the notion that electoral politics is the way to do God's work in America's public life.

In a refreshing departure from the culture war mind-set that has come to characterize this and other recent elections, some of evangelicalism's leading thinkers and spokespeople are trumpeting an important insight: Christians too fixated on politics are bound to end up frustrated and tarnished. And politics is not the only way to create positive change. ...

Mar 22, 2012

Can ideas from economics, such as that monopolies are lazy and that competition leads to better products, be applied to understand religion? Every year I teach my students–both those in my class on economic sociology and those in my class on sociology of religion–about the economistic or the rational choice perspective on religion.

Most people think individual religious behaviors and religious organizations are driven by emotions, theology, and/or tradition. But rational choice theories of religion are modeled are assumptions about human behavior now current in mainstream economics: humans are rational, self-interested beings who seek to maximize rewards and minimize their costs. What makes religion so powerful in motivating human behavior is that most religions promise rewards or punishment in another life. ...

... Talking about religion as a product marketed to buyers and sellers sounds appealing, saying that Methodists and Baptists are just like competing car firms is intriguing, and arguing that martyrs aren’t crazy but rational is counter-intuitive. Ultimately, however, rational choice theory doesn’t provide a comprehensive explanation of individual religious behavior or organizational religious behavior. Do some things about religion resemble market behavior? Yes. That is why I always teach rational choice theory: it provides unique insights into religion. As long as rational choice theory and its assumptions about forward-looking and self-interested behavior are considered alongside other important explanations of religious behavior, I think it makes an important contribution to understanding religion. But rational choice ultimately only tells us some things about religion, not everything, nor even the most important things about religion.

All social analysts–whether paid academics scholars like myself, journalists or readers of this blog–should put rational choice explanations of behavior alongside other perspectives, such as cultural and organizational theories. For example, it was not only competition from new religious movements or community megachurches like Willow Creek that led to the declining identification with religious denominations in America, but also important theological changes within those denominations about the authority of scripture, among other things. Dramatic cultural changes since the 1960s have also changed what people expect from religion–the God some people seek out today may be an authoritative God that expects sacrifice but for many others seek a therapeutic God who provides psychological comfort on demand. ...

Mar 21, 2012

... One of the most surprising findings from the data they collected, Campbell said in a March 13 interview with The Christian Post, was that people are driven away or toward religious involvement because of their political leanings. In particular, those who are politically conservative, or Republican, are more likely to become churchgoers and those that are politically liberal, or Democratic, are more likely to turn away from religion.

This is the opposite of previous understandings of the interaction of religion and politics. Social scientists believed that people first got involved in a particular religion, which then influenced their politics in some way. Increasingly, more studies like Campbell and Putnam's are finding, though, that politics is more likely to determine religion than religion determine politics.

Campbell likes to use the image of a "brand" from marketing. The Republican brand has been increasingly associated with religion and social conservatism due to the influence of the Christian Right, a social movement which has been a part of the Republican coalition since the 1980s. Moderates and Democrats are uncomfortable with that brand and seek to not be identified with it.

"A lot of what goes on in politics is not so much people thinking through political positions but it's sort of a visceral reaction you have to a brand, whether it be Republicans or Democrats," Campbell said. ...

... "Anything you might say about the general population, double it or square it when you talk about the young," Campbell said.

Since young voters are more likely to be politically liberal, especially on the issue of gay rights, they have been driven away from the church by the perception of a close association between religion and Republican politics.

To young adults, Campbell and Putnam write, "'religion' means 'Republican,' 'intolerant,' and 'homophobic.' Since those traits do not represent their views, they do not see themselves – or wish to be seen by their peers – as religious." ...

... "The reason this is important for clergy is these are not people who are lost completely to religion. It's almost like they're an untapped constituency, or untapped market, that could be brought back to a different kind of religion, or a religion that they thought was stripped of politics," Campbell argued.

There is a trend among nondenominational evangelical congregations that attract younger Christians to avoid involvement in politics. Campbell believes that the pastors of these congregations understand more intuitively what his data is showing more crudely – that young people dislike their religion mixed with politics.

And yet, it seems to me, that the vision of many in the PCUSA world is to offer a very political left version of the church as the alternative to the Christian Right. It is just a different "brand" of the uholy elevation of politics to the center of church's agenda. Stripping the church of all political reflection seems a bit too far to me, but with each passing month I'm more and more persuaded that the future lies in a church that integrates daily life with God's mission in the world, and includes people of all politcal stripes wrestling together through the issues that confront us.

Mar 12, 2012

The stern warning issued from the pulpit was directed at the tourists — most of whom had arrived late — a sea of white faces with guidebooks in hand. They outnumbered the congregation itself: a handful of elderly black men and women wearing suits and dresses and old-fashioned pillbox hats.

"We're hoping that you will remain in place during the preaching of the Gospel," a church member said over the microphone at this Harlem church on a recent Sunday morning. "But if you have to go, go now. Go before the preacher stands to preach."

No one left then. But halfway through the sermon, a group of French girls made their way toward the velvet ropes that blocked the exit. An usher shook his head firmly, but they ignored him and walked out.

The clash between tourists and congregants plays out every Sunday at Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the oldest black church in New York state. It's one of many Harlem churches that have become tourist attractions for visitors from all over the world who want to listen to soulful gospel music at a black church service. With a record number of tourists descending upon New York City last year, the crowds of foreigners are becoming a source of irritation among faithful churchgoers.

To preserve the sanctity of the service, pastors struggle to enforce strict rules of conduct. But the reality is that these visitors are often filling church pews that would otherwise remain empty — and filling the collection basket with precious dollar bills.

"Our building is in need of repair," church member Paul Henderson said after the service. "We need assistance. They're helping to sustain us." ...

Feb 17, 2012

Director Lee Rainie will address the annual conference of the National Religious Broadcasters. He will focus on the media habits of Millennials and GenX and how their patterns of gathering and creating information are different in the digital age.